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Ever since STANDREID started a thread a while back about the Boston Strangler, I've thought there needed to be one about the Columbus, Georgia "Stocking Strangler" (as with many of the Boston cases, victims were older/elderly women) -- but I was a little uncertain where to place it, whether in Serial Killers or Cold Cases -- because, also much as in the Boston cases, there seems to be a lot of confusion about whether one killer committed all the murders in the late 1970s, there is DNA stuff going on that is very confusing, etc.

I just saw a fairly recent (about a year ago) MSM item about Carlton Gary, who was convicted of some of the murders, so I thought I would post that link, and then follow with a link to more of an "overview".

To me, it's a complicated and perplexing case, and I am not truly sure what the status is with Gary as of today -- I hope some of you who post regularly in this section will help fill in some of the gaps.

Carlton Gary seeks another trial, 26 years later

The man convicted in one of Georgia's most infamous cases of murder and sexual assault is seeking another trial 26 years after he was condemned to death. ... He was convicted in 1986 in three of the seven brutal rapes and stranglings that terrorized Columbus in 1977 and 1978.

Carlton Gary: The Columbus, Georgia Stocking Strangler...As of this writing, the identity of the man who raped Martha Thurmond is unknown. Carlton Michael Gary remains on death row for three murders, of one of which DNA evidence may exonerate him, and uncharged in two murders to which DNA conclusively links him. ...

On a more personal note, I remember when these murders were happening, because I had an aunt living in Columbus at that time; I believe some of the murders happened in her neighborhood, and, also, she was a teacher and I believe some of the murdered women were in (or retired from) the education field.

September 15, 1977 - Mary Willis "Ferne" Jackson, Director of Public Education for the Columbus, Georgia Health Department is strangled in her bedroom by an intruder.

September 25, 1977 - 71-year-old Jean Dimenstien is found strangled and assaulted in a sexual manner in her Wynnton (an area of Columbus, Georgia) home. Similar to a murder that had occured 10 days earlier, the elderly women of Columbus had become a target for a serial killer.

The youngest of the ten women was 54 year old divorcee, Mary Sue Butler Ogletree. She was living in the Peacock Woods Garden Apartments on Forest Avenue and was stabbed to death. Her murder occurred two years after the others and caused quite a stir among those who knew the other cases well. While her murder was different from the others, there are those who argue that the change up reminded them of the Boston Strangler.

...The book theorizes that Bundy, a notorious serial killer, killed one of the Stocking Stranglings in 1978, after escaping from the Glenwood Springs, Colo., jail. It also theorizes that Bundy, rather than William Hance, killed two prostitutes in Columbus. ...

I've often wondered if some serial killers compete with each other for attention from the public as with the Boston Strangler and Jack the Stripper, Zodiac and Bible John or Jack the Ripper and the Thames Torso Murderer. In this case there was proof that another serial killer named William Hance aka "The Chairman of the Forces of Evil" was competing with Gary for attention.

This my opinion and to the best of my knowledge, that is, if I'm not joking.

This twist involves the same issue uncovered this past November when prosecutors revealed a DNA test appearing to clear Gary in the October 25, 1977, rape and strangling of Martha Thurmond was the result of laboratory contamination. ...

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. - 1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)

We are all one poor choice from being a subject on this forum. Think twice.

Not only are his feet too big, DNA and bite mark impressions might win him a new trial.

In fact, in the case of State vs Carlton Gary, the shoe evidence is far from the most compelling concern. Most disconcertingly, a DNA test has conclusively ruled him out as the source of semen found on the nightdress of the strangler’s first victim.

Gertrude Miller was 64 when she was raped and throttled in 1977. She narrowly survived the attack.

Last week Dr Greg Hampikian confirmed in his testimony the difference in DNA. He is a leading DNA scientist who conducted the analysis that led to the first, successful appeal by Amanda Knox, the American student accused of killing her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia.

Then Dr Thomas David, an expert forensic dentist, testified that a distinctive mould of the murderer’s teeth, which was made from a savage bite wound on the breast of another victim – 61-year-old Janet Cofer – does not match Gary’s teeth. The mould shows the killer had crowded and twisted lower teeth, while Gary’s are perfectly even. Indeed, at the time of the murders, he was working as a model.

Give me a break! . Gary is guilty of everything he was accused of & probably a lot more. He beat, raped terrorized & murdered old women. He is a robber, car thief, jail escapee & all-around ****! He confessed to the Columbus stranglings & explained how he broke into the houses. He was caught with victims' possessions.

A sexually driven serial killer strangled elderly women in the Columbus, Ga., area in the 1970s. Now, the case is drawing new international attention.
“Bombshell” evidence raises new questions about the guilt of the man convicted in the slayings in 1986, according to the headline in Britain’s second biggest daily newspaper, The Daily Mail. The article concerns Carlton Gary’s “last ditch” efforts to avoid execution. A Columbus judge heard testimony Thursday and Friday on Gary’s motion for a new trial.

But the article, by a British writer who has advocated for Gary and volunteered on his case as an investigator, leaves out some information that journalists covering the hearing for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer noted. The Georgia newspaper’s coverage paints a more complex picture of evidence in the case.

Attorneys for convicted “Stocking Strangler” Carlton Gary argued their case for a new trial, based on what they claim is new evidence, back in January before Muscogee Superior Court Judge Frank Jordan Jr.
As of Friday, there had still been no ruling.

Not that local and state legal officials — some of whom were literally children when all this began — haven’t been pushing for one. As reported by the Ledger-Enquirer’s Tim Chitwood, District Attorney Julia Slater and a group of prosecutors, including one present and one former assistant state attorney general, filed a motion June 27 calling on Jordan to make a decision.